I. Introduction II. the Task and Terms of Reference
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Participation Criteria for the Leaders’ Debates for the 44th General Election I. Introduction The Leaders’ Debates Commission (“the Commission”) is mandated with setting the participation criteria for the leaders’ debates and ensuring that the leader of each political party that meets those criteria is invited to participate in the debates. After consultation with registered political parties, stakeholders, the public and a review of the historical selection criteria, the Commission has decided on the participation criteria that it will employ to invite leaders to the next general election leaders’ debates. This document sets the participation criteria established by the Commission for the leaders’ debates and the Commission’s rationale for the criteria. In order to be invited by the Commission to participate in the leaders’ debates, a leader of a political party must meet one of the following criteria: (i): on the date the general election is called, the party is represented in the House of Commons by a Member of Parliament who was elected as a member of that party; or (ii): the party's candidates for the most recent general election received at that election at least 4% of the number of valid votes cast; or (iii): five days after the date the general election is called, the party receives a level of national support of at least 4%, determined by voting intention, and as measured by leading national public opinion polling organizations, using the average of those organizations’ most recently publicly-reported results. II. The Task and Terms of Reference The Commission is mandated to organize two debates (one in French and one in English) for the next federal general election. As part of its mandate, the Commission is tasked with selecting the party leaders who will be invited to participate in these debates, as set out in Order in Council P.C. 2018-1322, dated October 29, 2018, as amended by Order in Council P.C. 2020-871, dated November 5, 2020 (“OIC”). The relevant parts of the OIC that inform the Commission’s mandate state as follows: Whereas it is desirable that leaders’ debates be effective, informative and compelling and benefit from the participation of the leaders who have the greatest likelihood of becoming Prime Minister or whose political parties have the greatest likelihood of winning seats in Parliament; 1 Whereas it is desirable that leaders’ debates be organized using clear, open and transparent participation criteria; […] The mandate of the Leaders’ Debates Commission is to: … (b) set participation criteria for the leaders' debates and ensure that the leader of each political party that meets those criteria is invited to participate in the debates; (b.1) make the participation criteria public (i) for a general election held in accordance with subsection 56.1(2) of the Canada Elections Act, no later than June 30 before the day set by that subsection; or (ii) for a general election not held in accordance with subsection 56.1(2) of the Canada Elections Act, no later than seven days after the issue of the writs. The Commission has undertaken this task by considering: (1) the historical application of debate participation criteria in past Canadian elections; (2) the 2019 Participation Criteria; and (3) the existing public policy documents on the participation criteria and submissions from stakeholders, including the leaders of all registered political parties, the media and the public. As a result of this process, the Commission has developed principles to guide the Commission’s creation of the participation criteria. III. Context and Considerations A. Historical application of debate participation criteria in past Canadian elections Since 1968, televised leaders’ debates in Canada have been organized by a range of entities. For all election campaigns since then, there has been a relatively consistent set of participation criteria that have been applied to determine which political party leaders would be invited to participate in the debates. However, as noted by the 1992 Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing (the “Lortie Commission”), agreement on these criteria and other matters has been “difficult to achieve” at every election. One summary of the participation criteria that has historically been used to select which leaders would participate in the debates was produced in 2016 by the Institute for Research on Public Policy and Carleton University report, entitled The Future of Leaders’ Debates in Canadian Federal Elections, following a 2015 colloquium that brought together stakeholders and academics. The report examined the criteria established by the broadcast consortium that produced the 2015 leaders’ debates. According to the report, to be invited in the 2015 debate, parties: 2 - Had to have elected Members of Parliament (MPs) in the House of Commons; - Intended to run candidates in all or nearly all constituencies; - Had to have a chance of winning seats (as evidenced by polling history, previous results); - Had to have a presence in daily political conversation; - Had to have a fully developed platform; - Had to consider the language proficiency of each leader for debates in that language; and - Had to have an identified party leader. These criteria, which the report characterizes as “broadly appropriate (but must include some provision for exceptional circumstances)”, required that a political party had both proven electoral success in a previous election and a likelihood of electoral success in the election at hand. The Commission also notes that these criteria contained both objective and subjective elements. B. The 2019 Participation Criteria In 2018, the Government of Canada announced the creation of the Leaders’ Debates Commission to organize leaders’ debates in order to “make the debates a more predictable, reliable and stable element of federal election campaigns”. For the 2019 election, the Commission was tasked with selecting the party leaders who would be invited to participate in the debates that it organized. This invitation was based on the application of participation criteria set out in OIC P.C. 2018-1322. While the 2019 criteria bear similarity to the criteria employed by the 2015 consortium, they were less onerous in that they did not demand past electoral success. The 2019 criteria also included both objective and subjective elements. In other words, for one criterion, reasonable actors could come to different conclusions about whether certain political parties would or would not meet that criterion. Following consultations, the Commission issued its interpretation of the 2019 criteria contained in OIC P.C. 2018-1322 and concluded: “that the application of the mandated participation criteria contains both objective and subjective elements. While the OIC sets out what appears to be three criteria to be interpreted and applied, these can in fact be divided as follows: Criterion (i): the party is represented in the House of Commons by a Member of Parliament who was elected as a member of that party; Criterion (ii): the Commissioner considers that the party intends to endorse candidates in at least 90% of electoral districts in the general election in question; Criterion (iii): a. the party’s candidates for the most recent general election received at that election at least 4% of the number of valid votes cast; or, 3 b. based on the recent political context, public opinion polls and previous general election results, the Commissioner considers that candidates endorsed by the party have a legitimate chance to be elected in the general election in question.” The Commission noted that while criteria (i) and (iii)(a) did not require an extensive assessment because they were based on the review of objective evidence, criteria (ii) and especially (iii)(b), on the other hand, required further assessment. As a result, with respect to criterion (iii)(b), the Commission decided that it would consider a range of factors in order to determine “recent political context, public opinion polls and previous general results”, namely: - Evidence provided by the political party in question in relation to the criterion; - Both current standing and trends in national public opinion polls; - Riding level polls, both publicly-available and internal party polls if provided as evidence by the party and riding projections; - Information received from experts and political organizations regarding information about particular ridings; - Parties and candidates’ performances in previous elections; - Media presence and visibility of the party and/or its leader nation-wide; - Whether a party is responsive to or represents a contemporary political trend or movement; - Federal by-election results that took place since the last general election; - Party membership; and - Party fundraising. Ultimately, in its interpretation of criterion (iii)(b), the Commission concluded that its primary consideration on whether to invite a particular party leader would be based on assessing the reasonable chance of more than one candidate of that party being elected. When the Commission applied the 2019 criteria, the application of the criteria was straightforward in the case of five of the political parties. None of these five invitations required the Commission to interpret or apply criterion (iii)(b). As a result, the Commission invited these parties' leaders on August 12, 2019, almost two months before the debates, to participate in the debates. However, determining whether to invite a sixth political party, the People's Party of Canada ("PPC"), required further assessment. Rather than inviting the leader of the PPC in August alongside the other five leaders, the Commission sought additional and more current information, including from the PPC and from public opinion polling, before making a determination of whether more than one candidate endorsed by the PPC had a legitimate chance of being elected. In particular, the Commission asked the PPC to submit a list of three to five ridings that it believed most likely to elect a PPC candidate. Ultimately, the Commission 4 concluded that the PPC had more than one candidate with a legitimate chance to be elected.